At least 18 devotees have lost their life in the last 24 hours as a result of suffocation due to immense heat and drowning in a canal during the three-day annual anniversary celebrations of Hazrat Usman Marvendi Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sehwan town of Jamshoro.
Of the 18 victims, six drowned in the canal while taking bath, while the remaining died of suffocation in the immense heat in the last 24 hours.
Edhi Centre Sehwan identified two of the six drowned people as Shahzad, 20 and Babar, 19, both residents of Lyari.
Edhi divers manaed to recover the bodies and shifted them to Taluka Hospital Sehwan. Besides those who drowned, suffocation from immense heat claimed the life of 12 devotees, eight of who were identified as Nazia, Bashir, Mumtaz, Falak Sher, Manzooran, Tariq, Sajjad and Shahid.
The identified bodies were handed over to relatives, while the remaining four were laid to rest at Sehwan by Edhi workers. Only on Wednesday, Hyderabad Commissioner Ahmed Bux Narejo had reviewed arrangements for the annual urs and expressed apprehensions over past cases of drowning in the town’s canals. He had directed revenue officers to impose Section 144 CrPC to prohibit swimming in the canals. However, the directives apparently fell on deaf ears and the negligence claimed the life of six people.
